


the long fallen skies

by stormylullabye



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alien EJ, Alternate Universe - Space, M/M, Sammy the Space Horse, Space Battles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-09-01 05:37:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20253028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stormylullabye/pseuds/stormylullabye
Summary: Nathan MacKinnon, captain of the Canadian space fleet, forms an alliance with Erik Johnson, high commander of the Riklians, to save the universe from the evil Tellis. No, really.





	the long fallen skies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [callabang](https://archiveofourown.org/users/callabang/gifts).

> If you are in this story or know someone who is in this story, please stop now, for everyone's sake. This is a work of pure fiction that just happens to be based very loosely on actual people.
> 
> Written for Avs Rarepairs 2019.
> 
> Thanks to callabang for a lovely author letter and this prompt:  
Erik Johnson/Nathan MacKinnon  
Space AU, featuring young command phenom Nathan MacKinnon, smirky (xeno)biologist Erik Johnson, and maybe some kind of Space Horse. Could be found family, could be a high-stakes takedown of a shadowy intergalactic organization, could be long-distance pining if they get stationed on different planets. The sky's the limit (no pun intended).
> 
> This story is very, very (very) loosely based on that prompt.
> 
> Credit to somehowunbroken and anti_was_here, my fiancé who doesn't have AO3, but is on the internet in other places, for beta reading. Any mistakes are all mine.

If there's one thing Nathan MacKinnon hates, it's waking up tied to a chair with no recollection of how or why he got that way. His instincts, honed through years of training under the great Captain Crosby, followed by years of experience across the universe, take over. He stays still, trying to keep his breathing even and eyes shut in case he's not alone; he strains to pick up on anything that might give him the upper hand. He listens, but doesn't hear anything other than the hum of an engine, which is a sound so familiar to him that it doesn't normally register. He only picks up on it now because he's trying to identify any sound that will allow him to place where he is. 

Considering the engine sound, it appears he's on a spaceship, which is hardly helpful; he’s spent more than half his life on spaceships. Nate had been identified as the next Canadian fleet captain phenom at just 11 years old and had hardly set foot on Earth since. In the past couple years, he’s even surpassed Crosby in new planet identifications and interspecies relations. Just last year, he was the youngest person ever to be named Captain of the Canadian fleet at the age of 23. Since then, he’s been in charge of coming up with a plan to defeat the Tellis, a species of creatures that vaguely resemble massive grasshoppers who walk upright and are intellectually on par with humans. They are the menace of the universe. Thankfully, they haven’t made it to Earth’s solar system and, if Nate has his way, they never will.

The smell of the ship Nate’s on is vaguely familiar, but it's definitely not a Canadian ship. Since Nate is tied to a chair, he didn't figure he'd be on one of his own ships, but he did dare to hope. Still, the smell is familiar, and definitely not Tellis, which is good news. Tellis ships have a slightly organic smell that this ship is lacking. He just can't place the smell of this ship.

Having exhausted the senses that he can rely on while still pretending to be asleep, Nate decides to try sight. He leaves his head hanging as he slowly opens his eyes. The first thing he sees is a pair of brown boots. Lifting his eyes a bit, Nate takes in a pair of pants that have entirely too many pockets. Like, nobody could ever reasonably need how many pockets are on these pants, and some of the pockets are in entirely impractical places. Nate sighs and lifts his head.

"Johnson," Nate starts, trying for patience. He is the one tied up, after all. "Why am I tied up?"

"Mostly," Johnson says, "it's because you got a new ship and didn't tell me, so I didn't know who you were or if I could trust you. By the time I figured out it was you, you were already unconscious." The man looks supremely unconcerned about this turn of events.

That – okay, that's actually kind of fair, Nate reasons. "Johnson," he says again. "Why am I _still_ tied up?"

Johnson grins. "Whoops," he says, making no move to free Nate. He's casually leaning against the wall, and Nate wonders how long he was there watching Nate sleep. He hopes Johnson's shoulder hurts from leaning into the wall.

"You know," Johnson says, still grinning, "the first time I had you tied up on my ship, I asked around about you. Everyone gushed about how you're this talented young commander, come to save us all from the evil forces in the universe, Tellis included. I actually felt kind of proud of myself for catching you unaware. But here you are again, tied up on my ship. You're kind of a disappointment, MacKinnon."

"As I recall, you beamed something into our ship that knocked us all out after you impersonated another Canadian ship and then lied to us, saying you were sending us a resupply," Nate responds, glaring. "You tricked my crew into lowering our shields voluntarily. It's not like you beat me in battle or anything, Johnson."

For his part, Johnson just shrugs the shoulder that isn't pressed against the wall. "Whatever works, MacKinnon. You should know that by now, and you should thank me for exposing that weakness in your crew."

Nate sighs. "Sure, yeah, thanks. I also seem to remember that we agreed to an alliance after last time, which is why you were allowed to beam to us this time without being blown out of the sky. So, again, why am I still tied up here?" Nate pulls at his wrists, which are tied behind his back, and flexes his legs, which are bound to the chair for emphasis.

"For one thing, you should never be anything but tied up," Johnson replies. "It just looks so good on you." Nate rolls his eyes, but keeps his mouth shut. They hadn’t actually hooked up last time, but it was a near thing, and Nate’s used to Johnson’s indiscriminate sexual comments. Johnson pushes off the wall and starts heading towards Nate. "Like I said, you were already unconscious by the time I realized it was you. At that point, I thought it was safer to make sure you couldn't shoot me as soon as you woke up, so you got tied to this chair." Johnson's undoing the restraints on Nate's wrists and leans in towards Nate's ear. "It’s the same chair as last time, so at least you woke up somewhere familiar, right?"

As soon as he's free from the ropes, Nate gets up and turns to face Johnson, rubbing his wrists. "You didn't have to tie me so tight if all you were worried about was getting shot."

"No, I didn't," is Johnson's only reply, and he's grinning again. Why Nate decided to form an alliance with Johnson, high commander of the Riklians, is currently escaping him. Then Johnson crosses his arms over his chest, which pulls his shirt in all the right ways, and Nate might remember wanting to see more of him. He was also, maybe, just a little bit impressed at Johnson's ability to trick Nate's crew into lowering their shields for their supposed resupply last time. If Nate has a weakness for hot, talented commanders, well, it's a good thing the Tellis are some ugly creatures.

Nate sighs. "Is my ship okay? My crew?"

"Oh, yeah," Johnson replies, waving his hand. "All good. Still unconscious, but they'll be fine. I figured you would be the first to wake again, with all of your..." Johnson gestures to Nate, head-to-toe, and allows his eyes to follow the path of his hand. “Muscles,” he concludes.

"Good," Nate replies, nodding and very pointedly ignoring Johnson’s look, which has lingered on Nate’s biceps. "And I presume you've programmed my new ship's parameters, so you won't attack it again, right? And shared them with all Riklian ships?"

"I'm sure we have, yes," Johnson replies easily, flicking his eyes back up to meet Nate’s. "It will be cheaper next time if you just send us a communication telling us about your new acquisitions, though. It's not cost effective to continue using fajno gas on allies."

"If you had just reached out before going straight into attack mode, you wouldn't have needed to use your weapons," Nate counters, folding his arms over his chest. "Our ship reads nothing like a Tellis ship and you know it. For a species of supposedly peaceful people, you seem to attack without provocation pretty often."

"Oh, and I presume Canadian ships can’t be impersonated?" Johnson smirks.

"Shut up," Nate responds, mumbling.

"Anyway, a non-Tellis ship does not automatically mean a friend to us." Johnson says. “Using fajno gas typically allows us to ‘attack’-” Johnson uses air quotes here, and Nate rolls his eyes, “assess the threat, and end the situation without unnecessary violence. If we waited for provocation, there would be a far less peaceful resolution.”

"You still could have communicated first and attacked second, Johnson. You can communicate with your shields up." The man only shrugs in response. Nate's headache is building, which is to be expected after being knocked unconscious for who knows how long by an alien substance. He sighs again. "Can I go back to my ship now?"

"Leaving so soon?" Johnson asks, smiling roguishly and taking a step towards Nate.

"I have to check on my people," Nate responds, glaring. He may be interested in the future, but he’s not going to give it up right after being drugged by the guy. Johnson shrugs again, smiling and seemingly unaffected, which annoys Nate.

"Have it your way," Johnson concludes, disappearing from Nate's sight as Nate is suddenly transported back to the bridge of his own ship. Transport isn't really an inherently jostling experience, as it mostly feels like nothing, but people are typically warned before it happens. Nate stumbles a bit when he rematerializes in his ship and scowls. Looking around, Nate sees that nobody on the bridge is awake yet. He checks their position and sees that he was out for about five hours. That means he has another hour or two before most of the others start waking up. He goes to find some medicine for his headache and settles in to wait.

****

They're on a mission to Liriap, a little planet a dozen solar systems over from Earth, about a month later when he runs into Johnson again. Nate and his team have just reached the village that reported an attack by the Tellis to get a status report when he hears him. "MacKinnon," Johnson calls. "What are you doing here?"

Nate looks towards the voice and is confronted by a… well, it sort of resembles a horse, but it's purple, and about two feet taller than a horse, and it seems to have wings. Raising his head, Nate sees Johnson sitting on top of the animal. Nate raises his eyebrows. "Do you have some sort of complex, Johnson?" Behind him, Nate can hear Tyson laugh.

Johnson looks confused. "What do you mean?"

"You couldn't just get a normal horse? You had to prop yourself up on that giant monstrosity?" Nate gestures towards the horse, which turns and glares at Nate.

"Hey," Johnson replies, pointing at Nate. "You will not insult Sammy. I don't know what you think you’re talking about, but Sammy is certainly better than any _horse_," he says, spitting the word 'horse' like Nate had referred to a cockroach. "Sammy is offended."

The horse-creature does look offended. Nate confirms that he’s wearing his bafishe, as he always does. When one interacts with alien species as often as Nate, a comprehensive instant translator just becomes a standard part of the uniform. Still, he didn’t know the thing worked on alien… horses. It hadn’t worked on any other animals, as far as Nate knew. "Does the translator work for Sammy?" he asks, staring at the horse and hoping it doesn’t answer.

"Sammy understands many things," Johnson replies unhelpfully. He tilts his head up just so he can look down his nose at Nate, which seems wholly unnecessary given his position on an eight-foot-tall horse. "He is also an excellent judge of character, and he doesn't like you."

Nate has no response for that other than to roll his eyes, so he goes back to Johnson's original question. "We got a report from this village that the Tellis were attacking. We came as fast as we could, but when we scanned the planet, we didn't pick up any Tellis signatures. We didn't detect any of their ships with our long-range sensors, either."

Johnson nods and pats Sammy, who extends a wing to the ground and allows Johnson to walk down. Nate grudgingly admits to himself that it's pretty cool, and Sammy gives him a knowing look before trotting off to drink from a nearby lake. Thankfully, Johnson didn't seem to notice what his horse obviously did.

"We didn't arrive in time to catch the Tellis, either," Johnson says, brushing off his pants, though they don’t seem to be nearly as covered in purple fur as Nate expected. Johnson looks at the ground. "The village is lost."

"Lost?" Nate asks, too loudly to be calm. This village is big, and a good trading partner to boot. Nate had friends here. He turns to his team. "Barrie, Jost, Kerfoot," he calls. "Look for survivors." They nod and head into the village. Nate watches Josty run ahead, calling out, as Kerf tries to calibrate his life-sign scanner and Tys heads into the first building, starting a comprehensive sweep. 

"Brass," he says, turning to the last member of his ground team, "go back to the ship and see if we can contact the Americans. Compher will want to know about this." Nate turns back to Johnson.

"Who are the Americans?" Johnson asks.

"Allies," Nate says, waiving his hand. "From our planet. They don't come out this far but like to keep up with the news of the Tellis attacks. This one is the closest to our solar system yet." He frowns, not liking the implications any more than JT will.

"The Americans are also from Canada?" Johnson asks.

"I – no, what?" Nate responds. "The Americans aren't from Canada."

"I thought you said they were also from your planet," Johnson says, as if that resolves the conversation.

"Yes," Nate says. "Our planet is not named Canada," he says, but his voice goes up at the end so that it comes out like a question. He’s pretty sure he never told Johnson that his entire planet was named Canada.

Johnson narrows his eyes at Nate. "You said you were from Canada."

"I am from Canada," Nate responds. "I am also from Cole Harbour, to get more specific, and Earth, to get less specific. Cole Harbour is the name of my... village, I guess. Canada is the name of the land my village is in. Earth is the name of the planet," he explains.

"So you are an Earthian," Johnson says.

"Uh, sure, I guess," Nate answers.

"And America is another land on Earth," Johnson clarifies.

"Yeah, sort of. It's connected to Canada, but... you know what, never mind." Nate shakes his head. "Yes, America is another land on Earth. There are many lands on Earth, but we can have a geography lesson later," he says, glancing towards the village. "What happened here?"

Johnson sighs and crosses his arms over his chest. “It must have been a coordinated attack,” he says. “There are no Tellis ships that could have done this alone.” His voice is heavy.

“Coordinated?” Nate asks, and he can only hope that his panic comes across as heaviness, too. “I thought Tellis didn’t work together. They have their separate groups and don’t mix.” He’s making stupid hand gestures that fit nicely with his lack of a point, given that Johnson had already clearly explained himself, but this revelation is not a welcome one. “What do you mean coordinated?”

Johnson sighs again. “Yeah, that’s what we thought, too.”

“It’s -” Nate stops. “That was our major advantage here. The Tellis kill each other almost as fast as we kill them. What the hell?” It’s not his most eloquent ending, but hell will be a nice retreat from what’s about to go down if the Tellis are actually _working together_ now.

“I don’t know,” Johnson replies. “But either they decided to work together on this or there’s a Tellis group that’s much larger than any we’ve discovered, and I doubt a ship that big would have been able to hide from us.” He looks way too calm to be delivering this news, but Johnson always somehow seems unaffected. Nate wonders vaguely if it’s a Riklian trait or if it’s just Johnson.

“Fuck,” Nate says, because he doesn’t know of a more appropriate word to use in this situation. They’re going to need to take drastic action that they’re probably not ready to take if the Tellis are cooperating. He runs a hand through his hair. “Fuck,” he repeats, louder. 

“Yeah, it’s bad,” Tyson reports, coming back from the sweep of the village with Josty and Kerf in tow. “Nothing, no people, no remains, nothing. Definitely Tellis.” Tyson shudders and, yeah, Nate can see where he’s coming from. It’s creepy that a Tellis attack leaves no discernible damage or carnage, just… emptiness.

“Tys, how big is this village?” Nate asks. He knows the answer, but he hopes his recollection is wrong.

“Too big,” Tyson responds, grimacing. “Way too big and way too empty. What’s going on, Nate?” Tyson glances between Nate and Johnson.

Nate sighs. “Johnson thinks they’re working together,” he says, gesturing to Johnson, who nods serenely. Tyson’s eyes go wide and his mouth drops open, but he doesn’t say anything. “I sent Brass to contact the Americans. You should tell Landeskog and get him to pass the message around his part of the world. We need to do something about this.” Nate speaks with conviction, even though he has no idea what that something is just yet. He’s captain at his age mostly because he’s very good at what he does, but also partially because he fakes it when he has no idea what to do and usually stumbles into a solution.

Tyson nods. “Right,” he says, walking towards the ship. Josty and Kerf, wide-eyed, look at Nate and then at each other. Nate nods at them and they turn to follow Tyson back to the ship. 

“Any ideas, Johnson?” Nate asks, turning back to the man and finding him and Sammy in what appears to be a staring contest. Johnson gives no indication that he even heard Nate speak. “Uh, Johnson?” Nate tries again. Johnson holds up a finger in Nate’s direction, not breaking eye contact with his horse. “Well, that’s weird,” Nate mumbles, looking towards the ground and disarming his gun, since he obviously won’t be needing it and he has nothing better to do with his hands.

“We will have to go on the offensive,” Johnson says decisively a few seconds later. When Nate looks back up, both Johnson and Sammy are staring at him. He looks back and forth between them, but they both seem determined and just a bit menacing. It’s actually disturbing how alike the looks he’s getting from Johnson and Sammy are. Nate wonders if he’s ever thought of a horse as determined before. 

“Uh,” Nate says, shaking his head slightly before focusing on Johnson, who is mostly human-looking, even if he does have a weirdly angular face. “Yeah,” he agrees. “How exactly do we do that?”

“We will have to eliminate their hatchery,” Johnson says. Nate wishes he was born Riklian right about now. Johnson’s control of his emotions is enviable and Nate would really love the have the same sort of power at the moment. As it is, he’s only human.

“Their-” he starts, spluttering. “Their fucking _what_ now? Are you insane, Johnson?”

“It’s the planet where they reproduce,” Johnson explains, infuriatingly.

“I goddamn _know_ what it is, Johnson,” Nate shouts. He takes a deep breath and forces himself to lower his voice, which is probably a good plan given the literal steam coming from the general direction of Sammy. Nate refuses to look and see where the steam is coming out; he has no interest in knowing what a really pissed off, eight-foot-tall, all-knowing horse looks like. “There’s a good reason we don’t target the hatchery,” he says, folding his arms tightly across his chest to stop them from gesturing wildly. “It’s the only place where they don’t kill each other on sight, which will only encourage them to team up against us. It’s also heavily guarded. We sent a ship out there to get an idea of the defenses. We got a few reports back before we lost communication. We told them to stay cloaked and not to engage, but we still lost them.” 

“It’s the only way to neutralize them completely,” Johnson says. “Sammy agrees,” he adds, gesturing to his right. Sammy makes a noise of approval and stomps a giant hoof for emphasis. Nate glances towards Sammy and sees that the horse is also nodding. Thankfully, he seems to have stopped smoking.

“Yes,” Nate says slowly. “We figured that out a while ago. Do you really think we would’ve let the Tellis keep killing people if we could’ve taken out the hatchery? It can’t be done, or we would’ve done it already.”

Johnson smiles. “There’s always a way, MacKinnon.” He turns to Sammy and puts a hand on the horse’s giant flank, and they both disappear. Nate hates him.

****

Nate collapses into his bed after yet another international relations meeting wraps up. Interspecies relations, Nate can handle. Other species don’t usually have any strong opinions about Nate when he first shows up. International relations on Earth, not so much. The people of Earth already hate each other. Nate is so sick of meetings; that they’re international relations meetings only makes them that much worse. Initially, Nate had thought the prospect of appearing at an international gathering via hologram was pretty cool. He was proven wrong quickly. In reality, appearing via hologram just means Nate has to sit in a room on his ship alone for hours on end and try not to look bored. On top of that, the process of trying to get the people of Earth to agree is excruciating. Then Nate remembers the photos they got back from the _Maple_ before they lost contact and decides the meetings aren’t so bad compared to what they’re facing. Still, they’re exhausting, and they’ve been non-stop for the past week. Thankfully, the Tellis Coalition, which is what they’ve taken to calling the group that had destroyed the village on Liriap, has been quiet.

Nate’s eyes are just slipping shut when he feels movement at the foot of his bed. In an instant, Nate is sitting bolt upright with his gun trained on the source of the movement. His mouth falls open in disbelief. “Johnson?” he asks, incredulous. He lowers his gun.

“I brought you a present, MacKinnon,” Johnson says, holding out his closed hand. “And it looks like I got a present, too,” he adds, shamelessly looking Nate’s shirtless chest up and down.

Nate would normally be embarrassed, but he’s currently too shocked to be much of anything else. “You can’t transport directly into my bedroom, Johnson,” Nate says, half wondering if he’s dreaming. But if he were dreaming, Nate reasons, Johnson would also be shirtless. “The shields…” Nate trails off.

“Obviously, I can,” Johnson responds, shaking his outstretched hand. “A gift,” he repeats. Nate holds out his hand, dumbly, because what else is he going to do at this point?

“How did you transport into my bedroom?” Nate asks, at the same time Johnson drops something into his hand. Johnson beams at him, which is not an answer at all, and then Nate feels something scuttle around his palm. Nate should get an award for not shrieking and dropping the thing. Instead, he shakes only slightly before glancing down at his hand. In his palm, Nate sees what appears to be a tiny purple horse. His eyes widen. “Sammy?” he asks.

The horse glares at him, flattens its ears, and starts smoking. Nate is interested to note that the smoke seems to be coming from just about everywhere. He had assumed that it came out of the horse’s nose or ears, but it appears to come out of its very pores. “You…” Nate trails off, staring at the tiny horse in his palm, then looking up at Johnson. “Shrunk him?” Nate asks.

“I adapted his genetic coding,” Johnson says. “Tesherms are very adaptable,” he continues, as if that explains anything. In Nate’s palm, Sammy is smoking so much that Nate can hardly make out the shape of the animal anymore. He’s pleased to find that the smoke doesn’t seem to come with heat.

“Tesherm?” Nate asks.

“Yes. You called him what? Horse?” Johnson asks, but continues without waiting for an answer, waving his hand dismissively. “Sammy is not a horse, whatever that is. He is a tesherm. They’re a very rare species. They’re only found on a single planet and only in a single forest on that planet. They’re very reclusive and typically hide when anything attempts to approach.” Johnson is beaming like he completed some great feat in getting Sammy, which, maybe he did, but Nate is willing to bet that’s not going to stop Sammy from being pissed off when he’s big again, judging by the amount of smoke emanating from the vicinity of Nate’s palm.

“They live among this species of tree that is their exact shade, grows very tall, and is found is tightly clumped bunches. It’s nearly impossible to spot a tesherm that doesn’t want to be found,” Johnson goes on. Nate shakes his head.

“You _adapted_ his _genetic coding_?” Nate asks. 

Johnson is still going on about tesherms. “They’re not typically-” he cuts himself off and gives Nate a very put-out look. “Yes,” he says very slowly. “I already said that.”

“Is that, like, a thing you do?” Nate asks.

Johnson folds his arms across his chest and raises his eyebrows at Nate. “I am Riklian,” he says.

“That-” Nate stops. “Is this, like, a Canada-is-not-a-planet thing? Does Riklian not mean you’re from Riklia? Does it mean you’re some sort of animal supergenius?” 

“I am from Riklia, which _is_ a planet,” Johnson says, as if Nate is the stupidest being he’s ever met. “Riklia is known widely for the ability of its people to harmonize with all creatures. It is one of the fundamental truths of our universe. Surely you knew that.”

“Uh,” Nate responds, eloquently. “Sure. And harmonizing with all creatures apparently includes changing their DNA.” Nate nods, as if this makes any sense at all.

“Of course not,” Johnson replies unhelpfully. 

“Hobby of yours?” Nate asks, because it’s apparently no use trying to understand anything until Johnson feels up to explaining himself.

“I am a scientist,” Johnson says, sighing. “Riklian scientists discovered this capability centuries ago. Is this not something Canada has developed?”

Nate barks out a short laugh. “Uh, no. I can’t say we’ve gone tinkering in animal DNA to the extent of being able to make a living eight foot tall horse the size of a walnut.” Nate looks down to his palm, where Sammy has mostly stopped smoking. He’s sitting with his back to Nate and is glaring at Johnson. Nate chuckles. “I don’t think Sammy is too happy about it, honestly.” 

Johnson looks down at Nate’s palm, stares at Sammy for a few seconds, and then waives his hand. “He’s fine.”

“Can you actually talk to him?” Nate asks, genuinely curious.

Johnson laughs. “No, he doesn’t talk. He can project his emotions very efficiently, though. Right now he’s irritated with me, but not hurt physically or emotionally. He may bite me if I try to leave him small, but he’ll be fine once we return him to his typical size.” Sammy huffs and turns to Nate, who suddenly feels a desire to be alone that is definitely not his own. He lowers his hand so that Sammy can jump to the floor and find a corner to hide in for the time being. Nate turns back to Johnson.

“Speaking of wanting to be alone,” Nate starts, even though nobody had technically talked about wanting to be alone. “Can we go back to how you transported into my bedroom? Did you build an utter disregard for shields and personal space into Sammy’s DNA too?” He folds his arms across his chest, abruptly remembering that he’s shirtless.

“Don’t bother,” Johnson says, waving vaguely towards Nate’s chest. “I like what I see anyway.” Johnson smiles at Nate and waggles his eyebrows, which is just ridiculous enough to get Nate to drop his arms and laugh. “I came to show you Sammy’s alteration,” he concludes, as if that answers Nate’s question.

“I understand _why_ you showed up on my ship unannounced,” Nate says. “_How_ you showed up on my ship unannounced is the question. Our shields are calibrated to recognize our crew and nobody else should be able to get through them.”

“It’s my charm,” Johnson replies. “Even your ship can’t resist me.” Nate glares at Johnson, deciding to wait him out. After a few seconds of silence, during which Johnson waggles his eyebrows again to no effect, Johnson sighs. “You’re no fun at all, MacKinnon. This is all part of step one of my plan to defeat the Tellis.” Nate perks up at that and leans in closer to Johnson.

“You have an actual plan? All I have is bureaucracy and bullshit,” Nate responds. “The Americans keep insisting that we just need more nukes, but they have no idea what we’re up against at the hatchery. We won’t even be able to get close enough to use nukes.”

“Well,” Johnson starts, giving Nate a look like he doesn’t know or want to ask what a ‘nuke’ is, “I have a step one, which is to abduct a Tellis so our scientists can study it and form the rest of the plan. And in order to abduct a Tellis, we need a way to transport through shields into one of their ships. I thought I should try to transport into a friendly space first in case anything went wrong.” Nate nods; as a concept, it’s solid. “Of course, this space isn’t _nearly_ as friendly as I’d hoped,” Johnson adds, pouting and openly staring at Nate’s abs.

“If you’d opened with ‘I have a plan to defeat the Tellis,’ I might have been happier to see you.” Nate smiles. “Shit, man, am I glad you have a plan.”

“I have a step one,” Johnson corrects. 

“That counts,” Nate says, nodding again. He pauses. “You developed the technology to transport right through shields in a _week_?” Nate asks, his voice rising as the sentence goes on. “What are you people? Why are the Tellis still a thing? You could’ve annihilated them ages ago!” He’s very nearly shouting by the end of it.

“We are not a violent people, MacKinnon,” Johnson responds simply. “Unless we are forced to be. Riklians are lovers. It’s something we are known for,” Johnson continues, smiling devilishly.

Nate glares at Johnson. “You never needed to break through shields before, so you never bothered trying? Is that it?”

“Pretty much,” Johnson responds, shrugging. 

“I… okay, sure,” Nate responds. “Why were you responding to the attack on Liriap then?” he asks.

“To provide aid, help people, find animals that may have run off, that sort of thing,” Johnson explains. 

“Sure, of course,” Nate says tiredly. “You’re the fucking Red Cross for the universe.” Nate slumps back into his pillows. Johnson looks confused, but, for once, doesn’t say anything. “Except, apparently, you have the most advanced technology of all of us and don’t see fit to use it unless literally everyone is going to die. I guess this explains your unconsciousness gas. It doesn’t really do any harm while still neutralizing any threat to you.” Nate sighs. “Wait a second,” he starts again, sitting up. “Will your unconsciousness gas stuff work on Tellis?”

“Yes, of course,” Johnson replies. “That’s how we’ll be able to abduct one of them, now that we can get through shields. Shrunken Sammy will be able to administer fajno gas to a single Tellis and bring it back to us so that we can go undetected.”

“Of course,” Nate echoes. “You’re a genius, Johnson.” Johnson smiles widely, then gets up and whistles. Sammy grunts from the general direction of underneath Nate’s bed.

“Oh, come on, Sammy,” Johnson says, and waits a few seconds. He gestures at Nate, then, even though Sammy can’t see him do it, and continues. “Canada over here doesn’t know how to fix you. You’ll have to stay small unless you come out.” Sammy grunts again, but comes out from under Nate’s bed. Johnson bends over and puts his hand on the floor for Sammy to climb on. 

“Thanks, Johnson, really,” Nate starts. “I’ve been getting nowhere this past week.”

“Call me EJ,” Johnson says. “Or genius, if that suits you, Nate,” Johnson, or EJ, Nate guesses, concludes, right before he disappears. 

“That guy really needs to work on saying goodbye,” Nate mutters to nobody.

****

“Are you trying to start a battle?” Nate hears in his ear a few days later. He instantly regrets giving EJ a Canadian communicator. “Why can I still read your ship?” 

Nate glances at Tyson, who also has a communicator in and can hear everything EJ is saying. Tyson is already heading over to Kerf to figure out why their cloaks aren’t up. After a second, Tyson looks back at Nate and shrugs.

“What do you mean, EJ? Our cloaks are up,” Nate says into the communicator, still looking at Tyson, who nods. Nate hears a sigh coming through the communicator.

“I can still read you, Nate,” EJ says after a moment. They’re both headed towards a Tellis ship in order to enact step two of EJ’s plan. Nate had insisted that developing the technology to transport through shields was a complete step one and that abducting a Tellis would be step two. EJ had called him an underachiever, but had gone along with it.

“We’ll reboot cloaks,” Nate says, gesturing at Kerf. Nate typically leaves the technology part of his ships to the guys who know more about those things than him, but Nate does know enough to know that turning it off and back on works at least half the time. Kerf clicks at his keyboard and screen, then looks at Nate and nods. “Now, EJ?” he asks when Kerf is done.

He hears another sigh, but it sounds off. Nate turns away from Kerf, wondering for half a second if his communicator is fucked too, and sees EJ standing right in front of him. Nate jumps back. “Fucking hell,” Nate says. “Warn a guy, EJ.”

EJ smirks, then turns to head towards Kerf, who looks mildly terrified. “You,” EJ says to Kerf, “Kerfeet. What’s wrong with your cloaking?”

“Uh,” Kerf says, too polite or too scared to correct EJ, “nothing?” 

“Sure,” EJ responds, nodding. “That’s why my ship can read your ship perfectly.”

“They’re up and running,” Kerf says, gesturing helplessly to his screen. EJ bends over to look at the screen and Kerf looks like he’s trying to stay as still as possible. EJ doesn’t seem to notice, but Nate laughs to himself.

“What is this shit?” EJ asks. “Why are you running cloaks version one? The entire universe figured out how to read through these eons ago.” He’s gesturing at the screen, and now Nate is the one who feels helpless. “It’s no wonder you haven’t been able to defeat the Tellis yet, Nate. With such weak technology, I’m honestly surprised they haven’t defeated you. Canadians must not taste good, because the Tellis can see you coming from lightyears away,” EJ adds, smirking, and Nate thinks it’s to lighten the blow. He appreciates the effort, but it falls flat.

“Yeah, Johnson, you’re smarter than us,” Nate bites out. “Congratulations.” EJ looks a little stunned at Nate’s tone and his reversion to using ‘Johnson.’ “Can you fix it?”

“Yes,” EJ responds, uncharacteristically straightforward. “But not before we get to the destination. You’ll have to sit this one out, Nate,” he says. “We will continue on, but if you come with us, you’ll get us all into an unnecessary battle. This step of the plan never needed two ships anyway.”

Nate sighs and softens his tone, but waives off Josty, who is about to change their course. “We can take one Tellis ship, and the universe could use one less. _We_ could use one less whenever we take on the hatchery.” EJ is right that they never really needed two ships for this part of the plan, but Nate is sick and tired of waiting around while other people move forward. He wants to take action.

EJ glares at him. “We are not having a battle today,” he says, resolved. He turns his glare on Josty, who doesn’t stand a chance. Nate feels his ship begin to slow. “We can complete step two without violence,” he concludes, then disappears. 

Nate tenses with anger and hits his communicator. “Report back when you’re done, EJ,” he says, then removes the communicator from his ear. He gives in, but only because this was EJ’s plan to begin with and it’s not his call to make. He leaves the bridge and heads back to his room, trusting his crew to keep them in a safe location until EJ comes back. 

****

“Nate,” is the next thing Nate hears. He must have dozed off waiting for EJ to finish step two. “Nate,” he hears again, and opens his eyes to find Tyson gently shaking him. “Hey,” Tyson says.

“Hey,” Nate responds, blinking himself awake. “Sorry,” he says.

“Don’t be,” Tyson says, waiving off Nate’s apology. “Johnson’s back, though. He’s terrorizing Kerf. I thought you might want to come help.”

“Ugh,” Nate says, but he sits up, adjusting his clothes. He hates falling asleep in his uniform. “Yeah, coming.”

When they get back to the bridge of the ship, Kerf has completely given up his seat to EJ, who is typing and grunting at the screen every few seconds. Nate raises his eyebrow at Kerf, who throws his hands up and leaves the room entirely. Nate looks at Josty, who raises his hands as if he’s surrendering and backs out after Kerf. Nate shakes his head and clears his throat. “EJ?” he asks.

“You know, you really are talented, Nate,” he responds without turning away from the screen in front of him. “I told you that you were a disappointment, but considering what you’ve been working with, you really have done some good things.” Nate scowls, but EJ still isn’t looking at him. “This system is a disaster.”

“It’s been working just fine for us,” Nate responds, stiffly. EJ snorts. Nate just woke up and feels like he needs a nap. He drops into a chair to wait for EJ to finish whatever it is he’s doing to Nate’s ship. Nate wonders briefly if leaving EJ to do whatever he wants is the best idea, but settles on going with it. They need EJ’s technology if they’re going to defeat the Tellis.

“Done,” EJ proclaims a few minutes later. He turns to face Nate. “I fixed your cloaks and made a few other… improvements.” He smirks at Nate, which definitely can’t be good.

“What kind of improvements?” Nate asks, wary.

“Oh, you know,” EJ says. “Some power increases, some things that will let our ships work together better,” he continues. “It all works mostly the same, so your guys should still be able to operate it without trouble.”

“Right,” Nate says. He honestly hadn’t even thought about that, but he’s glad to hear it. “How did step two go?”

EJ smiles and reaches into one of his pockets. Nate still hasn’t asked why he needs so many or how he keeps track of them all. EJ pulls his hand out and opens it to show Nate a flat, circular device. He clicks it, and Nate sees a hologram image of a bound Tellis. “Recognize the chair?” EJ asks, smirking at Nate.

Nate glares at EJ but lets the comment slide as he leans forward to examine the image, resting his forearms on his legs. He scowls. They really are some ugly creatures. “Is it secure in there?”

EJ raises his eyebrows. “Of course it is,” he responds. “Why? Have any ideas to kill time?”

Nate takes the opportunity to look EJ up and down, lightly biting his bottom lip as he does. “Several,” Nate responds once he makes eye contact with EJ again. He’s pleased to watch EJ go red. Obviously, EJ is used to giving and not getting. Nate makes note of that for use later. He leans back in his chair. “But mostly I don’t want to have that thing,” he gestures at the hologram, “randomly beaming to my bridge because it got control of your ship.”

EJ scowls and shuts the hologram off, shoving the device back into his pocket. “It won’t,” he says, right before he disappears. Nate rolls his eyes.

****

It’s been a few days since step two, but all EJ keeps saying is that they’ll be done with their scientific study of the Tellis “soon.” Nate would rather be fully stocked and ready to go when they decide on a step three, and Quaren is their closest trading partner, so they head out. It’s a relatively uneventful trade mission. When they’ve successfully replenished their supplies, they head back towards the deserted planet where EJ and his team have been conducting their research. Nate goes to the training room, tapes up his hands, and begins a hand-to-hand training session. He has to stay prepared for any combat situation. They can’t always rely on their guns.

Nate has been going for about half an hour when EJ appears in front of Nate, who has to pull his punch before it connects with EJ’s gut. “EJ!” Nate exclaims. “You have got to stop doing that. Or, maybe,” Nate holds up a finger, like this thought just occurred to him, “you could announce yourself like a normal person before you just barge into someone’s personal space.”

EJ steps closer to Nate, so close that they are nearly touching, and Nate finds himself looking up at the other man, which is not something he usually has to do. He’s not a short man himself. “This,” EJ says softly, “is personal space, Nate.”

Nate blinks a few times, not wanting to back down first, but feeling like there is a sudden lack of oxygen in the room. He clears his throat, but it doesn’t really help. “Uh,” Nate says, and he honestly cannot think of any other words to add to that right now. EJ smiles and, mercifully, steps back. 

“This is not personal space, all the way over here,” he adds, spreading his arms wide. “See the difference?”

“Not really,” Nate mumbles, but his brain is capable of forming words again, so there clearly is a difference. Judging from the look on EJ’s face, he knows it, too. Nate clears his throat again. “Have you figured out the Tellis or are you just here to bother me?” he asks, beginning the process of removing the tape from his hands. 

“Why not both?” EJ asks, smiling. Nate snorts. “I do think we found something, though,” he adds.

“And what is that?” Nate asks, trying not to appear too eager. In the past couple of days, he’d been seriously considering the Americans’ nukes plan. He had spent more time than he cared to admit wondering if their scouting mission failed because of their inferior cloaks and if they could get close enough to the hatchery to nuke it with the new cloaks EJ had installed for them. He still objectively knows that nukes are a bad idea, but he hates waiting around for someone else to come up with a plan. The knowledge of just how far advanced the Riklians are scientifically is all that’s kept Nate sane. “Do they have an Achilles’ heel?”

EJ cocks his head to the side. “A what?”

“Oh,” Nate says. “I guess that’s an Earth saying. A weakness?” The bafishe is good at translating the words people say, but it can’t do anything for a reference to Greek mythology when EJ has never even heard of the Greeks.

“Oh,” EJ responds, looking like he wants to ask for more details about Achilles, but letting it go for the time being. “Have you ever fought a Tellis?”

Nate raises his eyebrows. “Obviously, yes.”

“Actually fought like this?” EJ asks, gesturing to Nate’s mostly un-taped hands. “Not just with your guns or bombs.”

“Yes, EJ, I’ve been out here for 12 years. Of course I’ve punched a Tellis.” 

“How did it go?” EJ asks.

“Horribly. Their shells are really hard. Even with the gun, it takes multiple shots to get through and kill them.” Nate explains, remembering the weeks it takes his hands to heal when he’s forced to take on a Tellis in hand-to-hand. Thankfully, it's only happened a handful of times. “But you knew that already,” Nate says, looking up at EJ as he finishes removing the tape from his hands. 

EJ nods. “Unfortunately,” he says.

Nate throws the tape into the garbage bin across the room. He flexes his hands, looking them over and finding no bruising. It had been a while since he trained last, so he’s pleased that he got the tape right and didn’t go too hard. He glances up at EJ, who doesn’t seem like he’s going to actually explain his breakthrough any time soon. Nate sighs. “So?” he prompts.

EJ, who had also been looking at Nate’s hands, raises his eyes to meet Nate’s. “Ah,” he starts, then stops.

Nate grins. Usually, he’s the one uttering those types of brilliant thoughts. “Weakness?” he asks.

“Yes,” EJ says, a little too loudly, looking down at his own hands before launching into an explanation with a lot of gesturing. “Well we did a lot of testing on the Tellis that we have to see if there were any spots we could target. Unfortunately, their shells are uniformly impenetrable. I thought, maybe, there would be a weakness at a joint, but we didn’t find any. So, we moved to testing their shell to see what material it is. We thought maybe we could engineer a weapon to target the specific material. It seems, actually, that their shells are very close in character to humanoid bone, which led us to wonder if they somehow convert bone to shell and that’s why they leave no remains.” EJ pauses here, and Nate shudders. “That was an interesting breakthrough, and we recorded it,” EJ continues. “Of course, your bullets are typically strong enough to go through human bone, but they don’t get through Tellis shells as easily. That’s partially because the shell is actually very thick, thicker than we thought by a lot, and partially because it’s slightly genetically different than bone. It’s harder and less prone to diseases that degenerate the material. It’s actually very interesting, scientifically speaking. We may be able to use these discoveries to advance humanoid medicine, and-”

“EJ,” Nate says, stopping the other man, who is gesturing wildly again. He actually finds it kind of adorable how worked up EJ gets about science, particularly when it comes to animals; it’s almost as excited as Tyson gets about hockey. That said, Nate really needs EJ to get to the point here.

“Right,” EJ says, clearing his throat and dropping his arms. “Well, we found that their shells contain a protein that we can target. Basically, if we can get a specific type of enzyme directly onto the shell, it becomes very weak. Then, your bullets would be able to get right through.”

“Excellent,” Nate says. “That’s great news.” EJ’s face twists into a scowl. “Isn’t that great news?” Nate asks.

“Well, I suppose,” EJ replies. “We haven’t had any luck vaporizing the enzyme,” he adds, still scowling. “So far, we can only get the shell to weaken if we apply the enzyme directly to it.”

“Ah,” Nate says. “So blanketing the hatchery with gas and bombing the shit out of it is out, then. Compher will be so disappointed.” Nate smiles ruefully. “Still, this is big, thanks.” He was going to go crazy if EJ told him they’d have news _soon_ one more time, and he was probably going to ask for an update as soon as they got back to the research planet.

“Actually,” EJ continues, frowning, “we found it about an hour ago, but you were out of range until just now and I couldn’t beam to you.” 

“Miss me?” Nate asks, smirking. EJ gives Nate a look that isn’t quite a glare, but isn’t friendly either, and disappears. Nate shakes his head, still smiling, and heads for the shower.

****

Nate’s ship barely has time to establish an orbit around the research planet before EJ is talking into the communicator in Nate’s ear. “We have a possible solution,” he says. Nate’s in his room alone, preparing for bed. He raises an eyebrow at nobody in particular.

“For?” he asks.

“Applying the enzyme,” EJ explains quickly, as if Nate should have known exactly what EJ was talking about to begin with. 

“Great,” Nate responds. “That’s really-”

“But we still can’t apply it to more than one or two Tellis at a time,” EJ interrupts. “We just figured out how to apply it from farther away.” Nate sighs, flops onto his bed, and squeezes his eyes shut. 

“Well,” he starts, “it’s still something useful.” He’s trying to imagine the reaction to telling his crew that they’re going to need to put boots on the ground at the hatchery in order to win this when he feels EJ’s weight bow the end of his bed. He sighs; at least they won’t be waking up others on the communicators anymore.

Nate opens his eyes, takes in the wide-eyed expression on EJ’s face, and abruptly realizes he’s only in his boxers. He can feel himself start to go red, and he grabs his blanket to pull over himself. “I’ve told you that you should warn people before you just show up in their personal space,” Nate says, arranging the blanket over his midsection more than is strictly necessary. “You could end up seeing something you don’t want to see.”

“Oh, no,” EJ says. “That is something I definitely wanted to see,” he continues, “but, uh, sorry,” he goes on, very purposefully looking anywhere but at Nate, “if I made you uncomfortable or anything.” Nate smirks. He doesn’t think he’s ever heard EJ apologize before.

“You know,” Nate says, sitting up a little higher on his pillows and letting the carefully-arranged blanket fall down so that it’s really only covering his boxers. “You should build that transport-through-shields thing into my ship’s programming.”

“Huh?” EJ asks, eyes fixed on the ceiling of Nate’s room.

“So I can just show up in your bed whenever I want,” Nate continues, and EJ shifts his gaze back to Nate. He works admirably hard to keep his eyes on Nate’s, but they flicker down to Nate’s chest and stomach every few seconds anyway. Nate shrugs. “You just have a very unfair advantage right now. I can’t catch you half-dressed.” EJ lets out a sound that Nate can only describe as a half-laugh, half-shriek. Nate laughs.

EJ clears his throat and lets his gaze settle back on Nate’s ceiling. “I did,” he says.

“Wait, what?” Nate asks.

“I did,” EJ repeats. “Build the transport technology into your system.” EJ glances back at Nate, sees him gaping, and smirks. “It’s more energy efficient that way,” EJ adds, building steam now that he has the upper hand again. “I would teach you how to use it, but I’m busy trying to find a way to more effectively target the Tellis protein. Maybe Kerfoot can figure it out and show you.” EJ grins, then disappears. Nate resents him and his stupid technology.

****

Admirably, Nate waits until the next day at a reasonable hour to ask Kerf about the transport system. “I’ll have to look around in the code,” Kerf says. “Usually, you have to know where you’re going to transport, you know? I’ll have to figure out if it works the same way through shields, and I have no idea how he shows up in random rooms he’s never seen before. Have you tried transporting to the room you have been in on his ship?”

“No,” Nate says. “I only found out last night that he built the shield-skipping thing into our system, and I don’t want to get blown up, or whatever happens if you try to bypass shields without permission.” Kerf grimaces. “Plus, last I knew, he had the Tellis in that room.” Nate’s pretty sure the Tellis has been moved to some sort of lab and put in an induced coma, but he still has no desire to find out by suddenly showing up in the same room as it.

“Yeah,” Kerf says. “That’s a no-go. I’ll see what I can figure out.”

“Thanks, Kerf,” Nate says. He heads to the cafeteria to get some breakfast. He’s just digging in when a tray slams down next to him. Nate looks up, fork halfway to his mouth, and sees Tyson.

“I can’t believe,” he starts before Nate can ask, “that I had to find out from _mini-Tyson_ that you got naked for EJ last night.” Tyson sits next to Nate, frowning.

“Josty?” Nate asks, dumbly.

“Oh my _god_, Nate, you did, didn’t you?” Tyson asks, brow creasing.

“I-” Nate starts, then puts his fork down. “What? No, not naked. How did Josty know?”

“You told Kerf,” Tyson explains. “Why did you tell Kerf you were naked if you weren’t?”

“I didn’t tell Kerf I was naked, Tys, come on,” Nate says. “You heard it from _Josty_. You had to know it was at least 40% exaggeration.” Nate raises his eyebrows at Tys.

“What is 40% more than naked, then?” Tyson asks.

“I had my boxers on,” Nate explains. “And a blanket,” he adds, “eventually.”

“Eventually?” Tyson asks.

“Probably after he saw everything, but yeah,” Nate says, and he picks his fork back up. “It’s not my fault the guy randomly shows up in my bedroom,” he adds, before taking a bite of his breakfast.

“It is your fault that you like it, though,” Tyson says, giving Nate a knowing look. Nate shrugs and takes another bite of his food. Not only is there no use in denying it to Tyson, he doesn’t even really want to. Tyson laughs and punches Nate’s arm lightly. “Exhibitionist,” Tyson teases. “Go for it, bro. He’s totally into it.” Tyson takes a forkful of food, smiling. “And for the record,” he adds, pointing his fork at Nate, “boxers is not 40% more than naked. It’s like 20%, tops.” 

****

Nate is very intentionally _not_ pacing on the bridge of the ship. It had been hours since he’d asked Kerf to figure out the transport thing, but as far as he could tell, no progress had been made. Josty and Tyson had both already yelled at him for stressing Kerf out with his pacing on the bridge, so Nate is now pacing in the hallway right outside of the bridge. He’d decided about an hour ago that he could just as effectively fail at coming up with a great idea to take advantage of the Tellis weakness while pacing here as he could anywhere else. He really hates waiting on other people; he’d much rather be doing something productive. It seems like all of the problems that have come up lately require some kind of advanced technical knowledge to solve, though, and Nate is not equipped to handle those sorts of problems. So, he’s pacing.

Tyson pokes his head into the hallway and rolls his eyes. “You need a better hobby, like, now, Nathan,” he says. “Kerf found something, though.” 

Nate immediately turns and begins striding back towards Tyson. “What did he find?” Nate asks. 

“I don’t know, come on,” Tyson replies, gesturing for Nate to follow him.

“Kerf, you’re a genius, what did you find?” Nate asks, almost before he’s even through the doorway onto the bridge. Kerf rolls his eyes and Josty laughs outright. Nate glares at Josty, to basically no effect.

“Well, for one thing, it’s the same process to go through the shields as normal transport. The shield bypass is just coded into the transporters now,” Kerf explains. “The code update in the computer will have updated all of our devices automatically. As for going to places you’ve never seen before, it looks like you just have to try to transport to a person, and you’ll go to where they are, even if you don’t know where it is. It’s all pretty simple, really,” Kerf concludes.

“That’s it?” Nate asks. 

“That’s it,” Kerf confirms. “It was easy to figure out once I found it. Your asshole alien boyfriend made it hard to find, though,” he grumbles.

“Not my boyfriend,” Nate says, though he doesn’t contest the ‘asshole’ part. “So you just picture the person as if he’s a location and the transport works?” Nate asks.

“Yeah,” Kerf says. “Here, follow me,” he says, and then disappears.

Nate had gotten so used to picturing a room or a village to transport to and from his ship that it had become second nature. He closes his eyes and pictures Kerf’s face, though, eliminating any background from the picture. He remembers when he first learned to do this with locations, and builds as complete and detailed a picture of Kerf’s face in his mind as he can. When he can’t add any more detail, he thinks to himself, ‘here goes nothing,’ and squeezes his hand closed so that he hits the button on his wrist that engages his transport. He opens his eyes and sees Kerf, smiling, in front of him. He looks around and realizes he’s in the gym on his ship. “Cool,” Nate says.

“Yup,” Kerf says, smiling.

Nate closes his eyes again, pictures his best friend, engages the transport device, and finds himself back on the bridge, facing Tyson. “Very cool,” Nate says, grinning. Transporting within his own ship doesn’t involve going through any shields, though, and his grin falters when he realizes. 

“Yeah, that one you’re just going to have to try, but there’s no reason it should work any differently,” Kerf, who must have transported back to the bridge too, says, shrugging. Nate nods. Sometimes, like when you’re having doubts that you don’t want to voice, having crew who know you really well and can read your facial expressions is helpful. 

“Thanks, Kerf,” Nate says. He feels like they’ve accomplished something, even if it doesn’t get them any closer to beating the Tellis and even if it is something that EJ could’ve explained in under a minute. Asshole.

****

Nate waits until later that night to test the transport-through-shields technology. He wants to pop up and surprise EJ immediately, but he doesn’t want to interrupt research by doing it in the middle of the day. Right before he actually transports, Nate realizes that he doesn’t specifically know when EJ does his research or how many other Riklians are on the research team. Nate might be able to materialize in a room of a dozen Riklians and a Tellis. He sighs, but he has to try it at some point, so he closes his eyes and starts to build a picture of EJ in his head.

When Nate materializes, he sees EJ reclined against a truly stunning amount of pillows, shirtless and smirking, on a bed that’s big enough for probably four adults. “Took you long enough,” EJ says, folding his arms behind his head.

“We figured it out before lunch,” he says, even though he hates that he’s immediately on the defensive, and even though it may have been just a bit after lunch when Kerf finally found the code that EJ buried in their system. “I just didn’t want to interrupt any research that might have been going on that will help us with the hatchery.” 

EJ grins. “Sure, sure,” he says, dismissively. “Well, this is my bedroom and you have caught me very unaware, considering I was expecting you hours ago. Do you feel better now?”

Nate rolls his eyes and sits on the end of EJ’s bed. He takes the time to give EJ a thorough look and deliberately licks his lips. The man had been hiding some muscles of his own under the oversized, velcro-laden shirts that seemed to make up his uniform. Nate notes that EJ seems to be wearing normal sweatpants with a normal amount of pockets, and it’s hotter than it should be, honestly. There’s always something just a little bit ridiculous about EJ, usually. Nate drags his eyes back up towards EJ’s face and laughs, rediscovering the ridiculous part of the picture in front of him. “What the hell is it with you and just going way overboard on shit?” he asks, gesturing towards all of the pillows propping EJ up.

“I will have you know that I am extremely comfortable,” EJ responds. “It’s like leaning on a goddamn cloud over here, Nate. You should come see for yourself,” he adds, far too casually.

Nate’s sure his eyes go wide for a second, but he tries his best not to react otherwise. He debates the merits of cuddling with EJ versus trying to figure out if the Riklians made any more progress on fighting the Tellis for about half a second, and decides that the Tellis can wait. He starts to crawl up the bed to lay next to EJ, which isn’t hard considering the sheer size of the bed. Just as Nate reaches the edge of the pillows, EJ takes one of his hands out from behind his head and holds it up. Nate pauses and arches an eyebrow at EJ.

“No shirt on the pillows,” EJ says, still casual. “I just washed them and I have no idea where that shirt has been.” He gives Nate a look like it’s out of his control and shrugs, slowly putting his hand back behind his head. 

Nate wants to roll his eyes; instead, he sits back on his knees, staying on the bed. He looks down at his chest and deliberately brings his hands to the top button of his uniform’s shirt. He unbuttons the first one and slowly moves down to the second, which he flicks open. Nate glances up at EJ while he moves his hands down to the third button. EJ is focused on Nate’s hands with dark eyes. Nate grins and looks back down, making sure he continues his slow pace towards the bottom of his shirt. He has four buttons open now, and his chest muscles are beginning to show. With the fifth button, Nate glances back up at EJ, whose mouth is hanging slightly open. Nate huffs out a stifled laugh, which only serves to shake his loosening shirt further open.

EJ looks up, directly into Nate’s eyes, and Nate’s laugh cuts short when he sees the intense desire in the other man’s typically snarky face. Nate fumbles with the next button, breaking eye contact in order to maintain control over his slow pace. He doesn’t risk looking back up at EJ until he’s reached the bottom of his shirt and is undoing the last button. EJ’s eyes are blown wide and his hands are no longer behind his head; instead, they’re resting carelessly across his stomach. All of EJ’s usual casual indifference is gone. Nate decides immediately that he likes this look on EJ, and he shrugs his shoulders free from the shirt, letting it fall to the bed behind him.

Nate puts his hands on his hips. “Like what you see?” he asks, going for humor, but it comes out too rough to pass. EJ glances up towards Nate’s face, nods once, and lets his eyes drift back down to the v cuts at the bottom of Nate’s stomach that disappear into his pantline. Nate tightens his stomach muscles, almost subconsciously, and lets his hands drop back towards the bed. He leans forward and covers the last few inches between him and the pillows. He hovers over EJ, who takes a sharp breath, and Nate’s beginning to lean in when an alarm begins going off. Nate stops, and the alarm continues to grow louder. It stops getting louder just shy of actual hearing loss, Nate thinks, and he sits back, bringing his hands up to cover his ears.

EJ, for his part, seems to be talking, though Nate can’t hear him over the alarm. Nate watches as EJ gets out of the bed and goes over to a door on the other side of the room. EJ slams his hand against the doorframe, the door slides open, and the noise, blissfully, stops. Nate lowers his hands from his ears, but they continue ringing while EJ appears to have a conversation with whoever is on the other side of the door. Nate’s hearing returns just in time for him to hear the door slide closed. EJ heads back towards Nate and the bed, but stops halfway at a chair, where he picks up his shirt and begins to wrap it around himself. EJ works to affix the velcro of his shirt on his right shoulder. “That awful sound was your _doorbell_?” Nate asks.

EJ looks up at Nate, all traces of emotion gone from his face. “The Tellis Coalition has attacked Zinkai,” he says. Nate sighs and scrubs a hand across his face, before reaching to pick up his shirt.

“Back to work,” Nate mutters.

****

Fifteen minutes later, Nate heads back to his ship with an extensive, unenviable task list. First up, he has to tell his crew about the attack and break the news that they’ll probably all be working through the night, again. As soon as this Tellis thing is over, Nate is requesting a long, much-needed vacation for himself and his entire crew. They have all gotten entirely too good at napping in shifts so that they can go all night. He takes a deep breath before striding onto the bridge, trying to project confidence. It probably won’t take the edge off what he’s about to say, but it’s worth a try.

“Hey, guys,” Nate starts, looking around the room. All of his core crew are there, even though it’s way past shift change. Tyson turns to Nate, a sour expression on his face.

“Is this about Zinkai?” he asks. 

Nate nods. “Yeah, did we get a report?”

“Just a few minutes ago. We all just got up here and we were about to change course. We’re probably hours away, though, even if we go full sublight, and we’re the closest Canadian ship,” Tyson says, frowning.

“Don’t bother,” Nate says, sighing. “I just got briefed and there's nothing we can do. The Riklians heard from their allies, the Dalsav. Zinkai is gone. All of it is empty. The entire planet,” he says, repeating himself to make sure everyone understands the implications. Looking around the room, he takes in everything from shock to denial, which is understandable. He’d been through the full range of emotions, too. “We have no reason to disbelieve the Dalsav on this. We’ve had friendly relations with them too, even though we haven’t worked together before, and they can be trusted. There’s no reason for them to report this if it didn’t happen.”

“All?” Tyson asks in a small voice, then clears his throat. “The whole planet?” he asks, a bit stronger, but still not quite steady.

“Yeah,” Nate nods, voice low. “Obviously, this is an escalation.”

“An escalation?” Kerf asks, and he’s almost shouting, startling everyone in the room with the contrast. “There were a few _million_ people on that planet! The village on Liriap was, what, maybe a hundred thousand? Nate, this is not just an escalation, this is…” he trails off. Nate nods again, completely in agreement. There really is no word to describe what this represents.

Nate clears his throat, remembering to try to project confidence. “Absolutely, Kerf, you’re right. And we’re going to stop it,” he says. 

“Or die trying?” Josty quips, forcing a laugh. Nobody laughs with him.

“We have a plan,” Nate says instead. “It’s not as developed as we had hoped it would be, but we just ran out of time for R&D,” he explains wryly. “The Riklians have developed an enzyme that can weaken the shells of the Tellis so that bullets can get through,” he continues. “So, we’ll be able to kill each one with two shots. The first shot will apply the enzyme and the second will be a traditional bullet. Considering it was taking us a dozen or so well-placed shots to get through their shells before, this gives us an advantage they won’t be expecting.” He looks around the room and, for the first time since he came in, sees a bit of hope.

“We’ll have to gather as many troops as we can and go to the hatchery. EJ assures me that our updated cloaks will get us close enough to transport down to the surface of the planet,” Nate continues. “We were hoping to be able to do this all from orbit, but it’s not going to work out that way,” he says, and sees faces fall. He can’t blame them.

“The hatchery, as far as we know, is the only place they can reproduce. The Riklians think it’s because there’s some unique element in the air, or soil, or water, or whatever, on that planet,” Nate goes on. “So, if we can go down there and take the planet, problem solved,” Nate concludes. He wishes it would be as easy as it sounds.

“Right,” Tyson says firmly. Nate loves many things about Tyson, but right now, number one on that list is definitely Tyson’s instinct to agree with Nate’s plans, even when they sound as utterly impossible as the one Nate just laid out. He gives Tyson a small smile for his effort.

“Now, I have to go tell Earth,” Nate says, sighing. “You guys work on telling…” he trails off, then waves his hand. “Anyone you can think of or find,” he concludes.

****

Nate heads from the bridge to his designated Earth meeting room. When he gets there, he glances at the clocks that track Earth-time and notices that it’s the middle of the night in New York, headquarters of the International Committee on the Tellis Coalition within the United Nations. JT will be thrilled to hear from him, Nate’s sure. He engages the hologram and sees an assistant at a desk, who perks up when he appears.

“I need to talk to Compher, now,” Nate says. “I’m sorry, but I really do, and it can’t wait until the morning,” he explains. The assistant nods and picks up the phone. Nate hears a very brief exchange, and the assistant hangs up. 

“He’ll be right with you, Captain MacKinnon,” the assistant says. Nate nods, internally impressed at how little push-back JT seemed to give the assistant, despite being woken up at - he glances at the clock again - three thirty-four in the morning.

A minute later, Nate’s image shifts as the assistant transfers Nate’s call to JT. He sees JT sitting in what must be his home office, wearing a plain t-shirt and with sleep mussed hair. “Nate,” he says, by way of greeting.

“Sorry, JT,” Nate replies, sighing. He feels like all he does is sigh lately. “The Tellis took out an entire planet, probably between three and four million humanoids. No word yet on other intelligent life. There is an effort right now by the Dalsav to locate other species known to inhabit the planet, and Tellis typically only take humanoids, but anything linking the Tellis and what they typically do is pretty much out the fucking window at this point,” he explains.

JT nods. His expression of despair and determination mirrors Nate’s own. “What’s the plan?” JT asks. Nate allows himself a small smile. JT is a man of action, and it’s not his fault that the American military’s first answer for any conflict is always nukes. For all Nate complains about the Americans, he really does like JT.

“Well, we have one,” Nate starts. “It’s not… ideal,” he continues, slowly. “But at this point, it’s going to have to work, because we can’t keep waiting to come up with better ideas if the Tellis Coalition is taking entire planets.”

JT nods. “Do we know why, yet?” he asks.

“No,” Nate responds. “We don’t know why they started working together, why they’re taking so many, or if this is part of a plan that they have for universe domination,” he continues, and he’s unfortunately only half kidding about the last bit. 

JT nods again, then clears his throat. “I’ll tell the Committee,” he says. “I’m sure they’ll want to meet as soon as we can get in touch with everyone.”

“Yeah,” Nate says. “I’m sure they will.”

****

An hour later, Nate is about 40 minutes into a meeting of the full Committee. He’s explained the attack and their plan, to the extent that they have one, which took maybe 10 minutes total. Since then, all of the Committee members have been fighting about the proper course of action. Nate has continued to sigh a lot, but hasn’t really said anything since he finished his update. He already has his team working to assemble the Canadian ships and all of their allies. They’re going to the hatchery in the next couple of days regardless. Still, Earth feels the need to fight about it. Nate makes a mental note to ask for a demotion so that someone else has to deal with these international relations meetings in the future.

Nate is watching the minutes tick by on the clocks showing him the time in major cities across Earth when he hears the door to his meeting room open. Nate glances towards the door, which he’d thankfully thought to put in front of him, positioned so that nobody on Earth can see who’s coming in, even if nobody is supposed to interrupt him during these meetings. Nate’s almost unsurprised to see EJ walk into the room. He raises his eyebrows at EJ and gestures subtly towards the holo-image, as if EJ couldn’t clearly see it already.

EJ folds his arms across his chest and stares at Nate. Nate glances back and forth between EJ and the meeting; thankfully, nobody in the meeting has seemed to notice Nate’s distraction. EJ raises his eyebrows at Nate and presses his lips into a thin line. Nate shrugs, subtly. He’s not sure what EJ wants him to do. Attending these forsaken meetings is part of Nate’s job. EJ drops his arms and sighs, rolling his eyes. Then he strides over to Nate’s side, much to Nate’s chagrin. He’s definitely going to hear about allowing other species to eavesdrop on an international relations meeting.

“Hello, Earthians,” EJ says, and the meeting goes quiet, which is a first. “I am Johnson, high commander of the Riklians. I’m sure you’ve heard all about me,” he adds with a smile, and Nate feels himself go red. He carefully holds his facial expression neutral. “I have come up with a plan to attack the Tellis, and I need Captain MacKinnon here to help me,” EJ continues. “Feel free to continue your extremely productive discussion and let us know if you come up with anything useful,” he says, before putting a hand under Nate’s armpit, hauling him out of his chair, and dragging him from the room.

“You’re going to get me in so much trouble,” Nate says once they’re out in the hallway, but he’s laughing at the same time. Nate looks down to adjust his shirt where EJ had grabbed him, and when he looks back up, EJ is inches from him. “Uh,” Nate says, caught off guard. EJ takes Nate’s face gently in both of his hands, and leans down until his lips barely brush Nate’s. Nate leans in, pressing their lips together, and brings his hands up to rest on EJ’s waist. The kiss doesn’t last long and isn’t particularly heated when EJ pulls back.

“Better,” EJ says, before turning and heading back to the bridge. After a second, Nate follows.

****

While Nate had been in his meeting, Kerf had done some calculations and found that they could get to the hatchery in about two days, running at full sublight. They could get there in under three hours if they travelled through subspace, but the Tellis could track them in subspace and be more prepared to defend.

“Josty, get us going,” Nate says, and Josty nods. Nate turns to EJ. “We have about 44 hours to finalize our ground attack plan, because we’ll need at least 4 solid hours of sleep before we launch.” He already feels exhausted. “We need to know everything you have on this enzyme thing.”

“Right,” EJ says, and disappears. Nate rolls his eyes and sighs, getting ready to follow EJ and explain that he _and his crew_ need to know about the enzyme, when EJ reappears, holding what appears to be a miniature paintball gun. Nate raises his eyebrows.

“We have developed this to administer the enzyme,” he says, handing the gun to Tyson, who happens to be standing closest to EJ. “The ball inside is larger than a bullet so that the enzyme will cover more area and you’ll have a bigger target to hit.” Nate laughs, and makes eye contact with Tyson, who’s smiling widely. EJ looks between them like he’s afraid they might be cracking.

“Paintball!” Tyson says.

“Yup, totally paintball,” Nate agrees.

“Deadly grasshopper of doom paintball,” Josty mutters. 

“All the more reason to hit them, Josty,” Nate says, lightly.

“So, wait,” Josty starts again, holding his hand up. “We have to hit each of them twice? With two different guns?” Josty asks, his attention on EJ.

“Well, yes,” EJ says, and he has the grace to look mildly ashamed. “We were trying to turn the enzyme into a gas, and we will keep trying until we reach the hatchery, but we have to assume that we won’t be able to figure it out in time.” He looks frustrated at having to admit the Riklians’ failure, but it’s due to the Riklians that they have a plan at all, so he’s not going to catch any criticism from the Canadians in the room.

“I don’t think I’m that coordinated,” Josty says, downcast. The levity of the paintball revelation has passed, and it’s only due to the seriousness of the situation that nobody takes the opportunity Josty so perfectly set up.

“We can work in teams,” Nate says. “We can pair up. One person can carry the enzyme gun, and the other person can carry the bullet gun,” he continues, nodding, thankful that they’ve finally reached a point in the process where he can contribute again. “Whoever has better aim gets the bullet gun,” he adds. Josty points at Kerf, back at himself, and raises his eyebrows. Nate rolls his eyes.

“How do I know where to shoot?” Kerf asks. 

“With the bullets,” Nate adds for EJ’s benefit. Everyone else in the room already knows that, of the two of them, Kerf has the better aim.

“Oh,” EJ says. “The enzyme will discolor the shell slightly where it hits. It will be lighter.”

“Is there any way we can add a colorant to it without making it ineffective?” Nate adds. “Like, say, neon orange? Something easier to spot quickly?”

EJ squints his eyes and looks up, thinking. A second later, he nods. “Probably,” he says. “I’ll look into it.”

“Great,” Nate responds. “While you do that-” he stops when EJ abruptly disappears. Nate clears his throat. “While he does that,” he starts again, gesturing to the space EJ previously occupied, “let's work on getting teams set up. Will the other three Canadian ships be meeting us at the hatchery?” he asks.

“They should be, yeah,” Tyson says. “We told them all to travel through subspace to different places that are all about 48 hours’ sublight from the hatchery and go from there.”

“Considering the distance and the number of ships, we don’t think the Tellis will pick up on the pattern,” Kerf adds.

Nate nods. “Good.” He sighs. “Tys, I’m sorry, but we should take first shift. We’ll get an idea of how many troops we’ll have total and start pairing people.” Tyson nods, and Nate has never been more grateful for his best friend. “You guys get some sleep,” Nate adds, looking between Kerf and Josty. “We’ll need you to take over in a few hours when we crash.” Nate turns and heads towards the conference room, where he and Tyson can access the full registers for all four Canadian ships and start pairing people up.

****

“Six hours to arrival,” Tyson announces. Nate nods grimly. It’s time for them to have one last meeting, get some sleep, and then gear up to go. 

“Set a ship-wide alarm for half an hour from now,” Nate says. “When it rings, we all go to bed, no exceptions but Saigeon, who will bring us in and is staying on the ship during the attack.” Nate gives the new recruit a pointed look. Saigeon had repeatedly insisted that he wanted to join the ground team. Nate had insisted that sending transport supply drops was a very important job that was far less likely to end in death. Saigeon was very much not satisfied with this explanation, and Nate had needed to order him to stay, which Nate hated doing. Saigeon just nods now.

“Good,” he says. “All ground personnel to the conference room.” Nate hits his communicator. “EJ,” he says, “we’re ready for the final round-up.” 

They all settle into the conference room. They’ve been over all of the fine details many times in the past two days. Nate knows that they’re pretty much as ready as they can get. “I’m just going to hit the most important things to remember, here,” he starts. “I know we’re all tired and looking forward to that alarm going off so we can sleep, but bear with me.” He closes his eyes for a second, then takes a deep breath and launches into his overview.

“One: terrain. The hatchery is a very dry, rocky planet. The reports we got back before we lost the _Maple_ show a mostly black planet with some lava flows, so we have to assume there are active volcanoes, and a lot of them. That’s why our boots and uniforms have built-in temperature control.” Nate pauses. “Volcanoes also mean that the ground could be very uneven. We’re expecting hills and mountains, but there’s also a chance that lava chambers can exist under flat ground, so never get comfortable.”

“Two: weapons. You all know your partners by now. You’ve been training together for a day and a half, which is nowhere near long enough. We know that. Still, you’ve all worked out your systems among yourselves, and we trust that you will work together seamlessly.” Nate glances at EJ here, hoping for a last-minute miracle breakthrough in the enzyme technology, but he shakes his head. Nate sighs. He hadn’t actually thought it would happen, but there was a part of him that hoped. “Right,” he continues, “so we have that part worked out. Don’t worry about what other pairs are doing. If a Tellis gets hit with two enzyme paintballs and two bullets, that’s better than it getting hit with none at all.” Nate is relieved to see heads nodding in agreement around the room. He has to commend his crew for staying awake, let alone listening to him, at this point.

“Three: supplies. The ships will be dropping resupplies of CO2 cartridges, enzyme paintballs, and bullets. Rule number one on the ground is to keep moving forward, because that’s where supplies will be. Try not to use the supplies you’ll have on your person unless it’s an emergency.” Nate knows that they all know this, but it’s making him feel better to repeat it anyway. “If you do use your personal supplies, restock them when you get to a resupply spot.”

“Four: injuries.” Nate pauses for a moment, seeing the grim expressions around the room. “It’s going to happen. I don’t want it to any more than any of you do, but it’s going to happen. Transport immediately if you get hurt,” Nate continues, his tone hard. “EJ has calibrated the transporters so that you will land in whatever Canadian or Riklian ship is closest to you when you transport. You don’t have to worry about thinking about a destination. You might not end up on this ship, but you will end up somewhere that can help. If your partner is injured, transport and you’ll get re-paired,” he adds.

“Five: adaptability. We have no idea what the Tellis are capable of on the hatchery. There is no recording of any humanoid landing on the hatchery that we can find. We do know that they won’t attack each other down there, and that they’ve been working together recently even away from the hatchery, and we don’t know why. Be adaptable.” Nate hates that he can’t give his people more definite instructions than this, but walking into a situation that nobody has walked into before necessarily comes with uncertainty. “If you need to throw everything else I said out of your head, fine, just do whatever it takes to stay alive,” Nate concludes. He glances at his watch.

“We only have a few minutes until we all head to bed. I know these are probably the worst circumstances any of us have ever faced, but they’ll be even worse if we’re all exhausted. Try to get some sleep,” he says. “This is fleet-wide. I’ve spoken to Captains Crosby, McDavid, and Poulin, and we’re all going dark for the next four hours, so you won’t be able to contact anyone on those ships, either.” He looks around the room again, making eye contact with as many of his crew as he can in a span of a few seconds. “Please,” Nate adds, voice softer now, “please try to rest.” He sees heads nodding around the room again, and he nods himself.

“Thank you all,” Nate says, then turns and strides towards his bedroom as the alarm starts to sound.

****

Four and a half hours later, the ship-wide alarm is ringing again, accompanied by an announcement: _One hour to arrival._ Nate groans. He had slept. Fitfully, but he had slept. He sighs, but gets out of bed. It’ll have to do.

Nate goes to the cargo bay to get geared up, then heads to the bridge. He contacts the other Canadian ships, and they coordinate their ship’s speeds so that they'll all arrive at the hatchery at precisely the same time. Then, Nate contacts EJ to make sure all seven Riklian ships are also coordinated. Between them, they will have exactly 2,388 pairs - 4,776 individuals, if you count Sammy, and EJ had insisted that they count Sammy, since Sammy is his partner - on the ground. They have no idea if it will be enough. 

The eleven ships in the air will each be staffed by twenty individuals, who will be responsible for shields and weapons, although they’re hoping to catch the Tellis unaware so that they don’t have time to launch an air attack. The ship personnel will also run transport, triage, and resupplies. A total of 4,996 individuals to save the universe. Nate can’t help but think it’s a frighteningly small number.

“Ten minutes,” Tyson says. Nate has no idea when Tyson showed up on the bridge, but he nods.

“Okay,” Nate says. “Everyone who is not staying on the ship, to the cargo bay.” Gathering in the cargo bay will allow Saigeon to transport them all down to the surface of the planet in one group. They hoped that showing up in large numbers all at once would give them the upper hand, at least for the first few moments.

The cargo bay is a bustling, loud mess when Nate gets there. If he didn’t know the circumstances, he might actually think he was in a crowd at a concert or hockey game. As it is, there’s a nervous tension within them all that shatters the illusion.

“Good luck,” Nate hears in his ear. EJ sounds resigned, and Nate remembers belatedly that the Riklians aren’t usually violent. In the frenzied planning of the last 48 hours, that had somehow slipped Nate’s mind. EJ and his people are all going into this battle with heavy hearts, and only out of last resort. Nate wishes he could communicate how thankful he is for the support, but doesn’t know how, and probably doesn’t have the time anyway.

“Yeah,” Nate responds. “You too,” he says instead.

****

Nate had thought the last few minutes would have dragged on, but suddenly, he hears Saigeon counting down from ten. He makes eye contact with Brass, his ground partner, and nods once. He looks at Tyson and his partner, Calvert, and nods at them, too. Nate’s idea of pairing up with Tyson was short-lived; they’re both excellent shooters, so it made more sense to split them up. Nate takes a deep breath and closes his eyes as Saigeon says _one._

****

Nate opens his eyes and takes a deep breath. The air is hot and smells mostly like soot. His lungs burn a little immediately, which he’s sure will only get worse as time goes on. The landscape is black and rocky, and much more flat than he was expecting. His mind notes _no hiding places_, which is not welcome news. He looks to his right and sees Brass, who is aiming his enzyme gun directly ahead, eyes scanning. Nate takes another breath, looks to his left, and sees Tyson. He glances behind them and sees the rest of their group, all taking in their surroundings. In the distance, Nate sees Crosby show up with another group of people. 

It all seems suspiciously quiet at first, and Nate is hopeful that they got the upper hand. He raises his gun and takes a step forward. Suddenly, the ground itself seems to react to their presence. A hole opens right in front of Nate and a large burst of very hot steam comes up. Nate steps back just in time. He hits his communicator. “Steam vents,” he reports. “Everyone, be careful where you step.” He’s already sweating, and they’ve been on the ground less than ten seconds.

As always seems to happen, though, things start to speed up once Nate has his bearings. He hears a vague shout of “left” coming from behind him, so he turns to his left and sees the first wave of Tellis responding to their presence. Nate taps Brass and they run towards the fight. 

Nate’s ears are immediately ringing with Tellis battle cries and what seems to be some sort of alarm. He realizes immediately that the Tellis are probably calling for backup. He wishes they could cut the alarm off, but he knows it’s probably no use. Searching for the source of the sound would only make them vulnerable. Once they’re in range, Brass begins firing, peppering the front line of the wave of Tellis with bright orange enzyme. Nate follows Brass’s shots, left-to-right, as they’d discussed, and the first line goes down easily. 

Nate is relieved, but there are at least a dozen more lines behind that one, so he doesn’t let himself falter. He and Brass are still moving forward when the ground opens up and another burst of steam shoots out. Nate hears Brass shout, and the Tellis in front of him stay a very disturbing and uniform shade of brown. Nate glances to where Brass should be, but he’s on the ground, enzyme gun laying next to him. Nate bends down and picks up the gun, shooting each of the Tellis in the next line first with enzyme and then with a bullet to buy himself a little time. 

Nate crouches down next to Brass and sees that he’s breathing, at least. All of his exposed skin is red and irritated where the steam hit him. Nate slams the button on Brass’s transporter and the man disappears. Nate thinks for half a second that they are not prepared to treat burns on the ships, but pushes the thought back. He’s got bigger problems to deal with. 

He gets back up, one gun in each hand, and continues moving forward. Tyson, who has kept up with him, shouts something about going back and getting a new partner, but Nate brushes him off and keeps firing. Another three lines go down without incident, and Nate sees a resupply drop come through. He’s very satisfied to see that it takes a few Tellis out when it materializes. He thinks to tell his ship to aim the drops at large groups, but doesn’t have time to reach for his communicator before he has to start firing again, hitting the waves of Tellis with first the enzyme and then a bullet.

Out of the corner of his eye, Nate sees something large and purple swoop down and take out an entire line of Tellis. He glances over and sees that EJ is perched on Sammy’s back with two guns of his own, taking out Tellis that break through the lines as Sammy controls the front of the group with, Nate is surprised to note, giant talons. Nate makes a mental note to apologize for ever calling Sammy a horse.

They make it through the first group and get to the first resupply. Nate takes stock and notices some faces missing, including Josty and Kerf. He sets his mouth and determines not to think about it. He reloads both of his guns, brushes off Tyson’s second attempt to get him to go back for a new partner, and moves forward. The steam vents are increasing as Nate moves, and he notices a lava flow up ahead. He hopes they won’t have to cross it, but starts trying to think of possible ways to do it in case they do.

As he’s scanning the horizon, Nate sees something irregular to his right. He turns his full focus on it and notices that there are Tellis emerging from what seems to be the mouth of a cave. Nate hits his communicator. “Caves,” he reports. “Low to the ground,” he adds, so that all of his people will know to watch for Tellis, even when they seem to be in a lull. 

“Yeah,” Nate hears, and he identifies the voice as McDavid. “Here too. Tons of them,” he adds. Nate nods, though nobody is likely watching him. He shifts his focus to the ground and halts as he sees the ground trembling right in front of him, expecting a steam vent to open. Instead, Nate watches in horror as the ground seems to move and adapt, re-forming itself into an opening. A Tellis begins to crawl out.

It’s sprayed orange and falls before Nate even realizes he’s firing. He doesn’t even know how to report what just happened. The planet seems to be somehow alive and working against them, delivering Tellis wherever they feel like popping up. Thankfully, it seems that this hole only held one. He wonders if that’s going to be true across the planet or not. As he looks back up, he sees that a new wave of Tellis have descended on his position, and quickly realizes that the ground-Tellis are distractors. 

Nate fires enzyme and bullets so quickly that he doesn’t know how his brain keeps track, but somehow the Tellis keep going orange and then falling, so he doesn’t think too hard about it and lets his muscle memory take over. He’s rooted to the spot, having been so distracted by the ground that he has to hold his position and can’t move forward. He can hear and see others around him, battling with him. They aren’t losing ground, but their shots are limited until they reach a resupply. Nate can see one up ahead, but there are at least five more lines of Tellis between his group and it.

Sammy swoops down then, taking out two lines of the Tellis at once, and clearing some room for Nate’s group to continue. He tries to project thankfulness at Sammy, but he has no idea if the tesherm gets the message. Nate takes a step forward, moving into the last few lines of Tellis and towards the resupply. Another hole begins to open up at Nate’s feet, and he’s horrified to see another Tellis begin crawling up at him. Someone to Nate’s right takes care of it, and Nate re-focuses straight ahead.

A large steam vent opens up and sprays a Tellis directly, but it seems unaffected. Nate guesses that the heat doesn’t get through the Tellis shell, which is why they can walk right through the vents. It only makes sense. They wouldn’t be comfortable enough to reproduce on this planet otherwise. Nate sprays that Tellis with enzyme, but doesn’t hit it with a bullet, hoping that the steam vent will open back up.

Miraculously, it does. Nate has some hope that the planet isn’t entirely working against them, at least, as it sprays the Tellis with steam again. This time, Nate having created a vulnerability in its shell, the Tellis goes down. Nate resolves to continue spraying the bugs with enzyme, even if he runs out of bullets. Maybe the planet will take a few of the bug creatures down for them.

They make it to the second resupply without having to get into their personal supplies, thanks only to Sammy. They don’t have much time to restock before more Tellis come at them. They’re definitely outnumbered, Nate notes, but they’ve also lost fewer than the Tellis have. Range weapons, Nate thinks, make all the difference. Range weapons and the enzyme, he corrects. If they had to hit each Tellis a dozen times, there’s no way they would be winning this fight.

In the distance, Nate hears an explosion. “Vent took out our resupply,” Nate hears in his ear. “Ship, copy?” It’s Crosby.

“Saigeon,” Nate adds, in case nobody on Crosby’s ship is listening. 

“Yep, on it,” someone replies. Nate’s not sure who, but he’s sure it doesn’t matter. He’s taken two more lines of Tellis down, and he grabs extra supplies to shove in his pockets, judging by how many Tellis he sees between him and the next resupply spot. For the first time, Nate wonders if EJ’s on to something with all the pockets, but it’s only for half a second, and then Nate’s shooting again.

“Blow it up!” Poulin yells in Nate’s ear. “The enzyme, blow it all up! All these freaks over here are porous. I guess the enzyme got in the air or something!”

“Blow it up?” Nate hears EJ reply skeptically. 

“Should’ve asked Compher how to vaporize it, EJ,” Nate replies. JT is really going to love this. “Saigeon,” Nate starts, intending to tell him to drop and blow enzyme stores, so long as he can do it without endangering any of their troops, but he stops when he sees an explosion ahead of him. 

“Yup,” Saigeon replies. Nate sees a few more explosions go off as he battles his way through the lines of Tellis swarming at him. He’s still hitting them with enzyme and bullets, not sure how far the vaporized enzyme will travel or how quickly. Halfway to the third resupply station, Nate has to reload from his personal stores. More and more of the Tellis are coming out of the ground at him, to add to the ones coming from in front of him. As Nate is reloading, a Tellis reaches him and slashes at his leg. Nate goes down on one knee, pain shooting from the vicinity of his left calf. Before the Tellis can hit him again, it goes down. 

Tyson comes up next to Nate. “Go, Nate,” he says, looking straight ahead and shooting. Nate notices that he seems to be with Josty now, but refuses to wonder why. “We’ve got this,” he says.

“No way,” Nate replies. He looks at his leg and notices that the cut isn’t too deep, so he grits his teeth and gets back up. He moves forward a little slower now, but he keeps going. After two more lines of Tellis go down, Nate notices that the creatures coming at him seem to be a slightly lighter brown color. He shoots one of them with a bullet before hitting it with the enzyme, and it drops. “It worked,” he says, to nobody in particular. 

“They’re weakened over here,” Crosby says in Nate’s ear. 

“Here, too,” echoes McDavid.

“Yup,” adds Nate. The Tellis are dropping left and right. Nate gets to the next resupply spot, where he finds that the ships have sent down extra guns for the guys who were shooting enzyme paintballs, so they double their fire power moving forward. 

They must have taken down thousands of Tellis at this point, but they keep coming. As Nate continues to move forward, he notices what appears to be a single mountain in the distance. It seems like that’s where the creatures are coming from. Looking to his sides, Nate can see the other groups also closing in on the mountain from all angles. Nate can also see, as they draw ever closer, that the lava he spotted earlier seems to be surrounding the mountain.

“EJ,” Nate says into his communicator. “Can you and Sammy see if there’s a way over that lava? Or if we’ll need to get over it?” EJ doesn’t respond, but Nate sees a streak of purple fly ahead of the troops. It seems to confuse some of the Tellis, who can’t decide whether to forge ahead towards the ground troops or go back to defend the mountain. Nate and his troops take full advantage of the distraction, plowing through.

The steam vents get more frequent the closer they get to the mountain. So do the spontaneous caves that open up to reveal a Tellis. Nate’s pleased to note that it only ever seems to be a single Tellis per cave and that the enzyme gas has reached the ones that come out of the ground. He’s not happy that they keep popping up when waves of Tellis are still descending on him from the front, though. 

“No easy way in, Nate,” EJ reports. “I say we bomb it.”

That phrase coming from EJ is almost enough to get Nate to stop in his tracks, but his instincts and training keep him moving forward. They reach another resupply and load their guns. “You think?” asks Nate.

“They’re all weakened,” EJ responds. “Maybe throw some more enzyme down there to make sure, but yeah,” he says. He sounds so tired and resigned, and Nate feels the exhaustion seeping through him, not to mention the pain still radiating from his leg and the burning in his lungs from the hot, ashy air. 

“Everyone, hold your fire,” Nate says. “Saigeon,” he continues. “Get us out of here, and then blow it up,” he commands. A few seconds later, Nate’s on the bridge of his ship, looking down at the surface of the planet, which resembles an ant farm, with Tellis scrambling around, confused, as the troops are transported away. Nate watches as the mountain on the planet lasts through a few blasts, but ultimately falls. The brightness of the explosions leaves Nate blinking to try to re-adjust to the blackness of the planet. When he looks back down, he doesn’t see any movement.

****

Nate spends the next few hours in international relations meetings. All of the Canadian captains join him in his hologram room, so at least he isn’t suffering alone. Still, they’re hurt, they’re tired, and they’re sick of explaining themselves to a bunch of people who weren’t even there. The meetings finally end when JT, bless his soul, tells everyone they’re done for the day. Everyone signs off, one by one, until only JT is left facing the room. He makes eye contact with each one of them, then focuses on Nate. “Thank you,” he says solemnly. Then he signs off and the Captains are left blissfully alone. They exchange looks and handshakes, and, one by one, they leave Nate’s ship for their own. They don’t need any more words among themselves.

There is damage to assess, and there are people to check on. Nate checks in with Tyson and finds out that they lost four of their crew, including Calvert. Nate squeezes his eyes shut, nods once, and takes a deep breath. Brass will recover; Kerf broke an arm when a Tellis cave opened up underneath him and he fell, but will be fine. Josty won’t stop bragging to everyone he sees that he didn’t get hurt, but also won’t leave Kerf’s bedside, which has limited his exposure to the crew at large. 

“And you?” Nate asks. 

“I’m fine, Nate,” Tyson responds. “Not a scratch. I guess being named Tyson was lucky today,” he adds with a smile. “Have you gotten your leg treated?”

“Medical poured some peroxide or something on it and taped me up,” Nate responds. “It really isn’t deep,” he explains.

“Then go to sleep,” Tyson says. His tone doesn’t leave much room for Nate to argue. When Nate opens his mouth to try anyway, Tyson holds up a hand. “Nope, not interested,” he says, and points down the hallway that leads to Nate’s bedroom. “Now go.”

Nate half-stumbles into his room. He really does need sleep. Not that the rest of his crew doesn’t, but Nate wasn’t up to arguing with Tyson about sleep priorities when he feels so tired. When Nate flicks on the lights, he isn’t even surprised to find EJ already there, leaned up against Nate’s wall.

“Hey,” Nate says. EJ smiles wide, and Nate notices that he’s missing his two front teeth. “You got hurt,” he says.

EJ shrugs. “Yeah, but I think it suits me, don’t you?” he asks, and smiles at Nate again.

Nate chuckles as he climbs into bed with EJ. “It really does.”

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this work comes from the song "Space Cowboy" by Steve Miller Band (which is a separate and distinct song from "The Joker").
> 
> To clarify, the commander "Poulin" is Marie-Philip Poulin, Canadian women's hockey star.
> 
> The "bafishe" translator is a blatant rip-off of the babel fish from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
> 
> Credit to the TV show Stargate: Atlantis, which is where most of my ideas of space travel come from. I'm sure I stole more than one idea from that show in the course of writing this.
> 
> I listened to "Skyfall" by Adele a whole lot while writing this, so I recommend that. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
